Archive for the 'thoughts' Category

World Initiatives, Huge Ideas, Global Problems, Collective Solutions, a life changing book no matter what field your in!

A must buy and read book I picked up at PopTech this past weekend filled with an immense amount of inspiring, resourceful, and mind-blowing chapters of information on green sustainability in all aspects with write ups from over 60 authors and a collection of provoking and inspirational images. As Alex Steffen from WorldChanging quotes:

“The debate [over climate change] is over: Youâ€™re either on board, or youâ€™re just wrong.â€

Go buy this book(book tour), spread the knowledge, and become part of this global transformation. More here.

Sushi Pillows!!! Yuuuuummm!!!(I’m drooling) As much as I LOVE sushi, I’d go crazy if I had a few of these in my room and probably munch on them in my sleep, otherwise, I love the details in these oh so oishii pillows. I wished they had sashimi pillows and soy sauce blankets with green wasabi sheets to bunch up into balls! Maybe textured dark green sheets to roll yourself into a sleeping seaweed body roll! Look out for sushi costumes for the upcoming halloween! more pics after the jump…

How freakin smart and beautiful. No more stumbling around when someone wants to shake hands or your cell phone rings at social gatherings. With these cute little plates, I’ll be able to dine, wine, and look good doing it!

“An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a new study funded by the US air force. ”

Yup,this ideas been floating around for years, but it’s finally getting the approval for testing. Be it a package, a satelite to sling into orbit, or worse case scenario a huge project turned into an amazing rollercoaster ride. Perhaps they should collaborate with the Tate Museum slide and make one dreamy magnetic slide cannon much like what arnold zipped down in the movie Running Man. I have great hopes for this project but really hope it doesn’t turn into one of those grand openings where the projections slam right into a clueless birds much like Fabios rollercoaster ride, the bird hit by a baseball, bird slammed by a golfball, a fighter jet, or many other stories that I’ve seen.

First came the sweet Red Bull headquarters slide, and now comes an awesome slide installation by artist Carsten Holler in the Tate Museum in London. Reminds me of my days at Wet n Wild water parks. I like Hollers belief that “slides can help combat stress and depression.” ,but I think anything that zips me around at fast speeds will make me forget anything.(skydiving, rollercoasters, bungie jumping)

Anyhoots, I wish this installation was there when I was visiting recently. I’ll post more pictures after the jump, otherwise there’s a video of people plunging down the slide screaming and poppin off the ends!via BBC

Yup! The weekend rumors were true! Google just purchased Youtube for 1.65 Billion big ones!!! Maybe now the Epic of Googlezon will happen in the near future?!

As far as I know, google is buying the internet and will own everything I do, think, spell, eat, sleep. Are they not evil? Nah, they just own my life online, offline, and everywhere else.via gizmodo
update: the YouTube founders make a video reply(yes, they seem verryyyy happy)

I had the Best time watching this episode of “SouthPark: WarCraft” making fun of RPG’s(role playing games) filled with very real stereotypes that all you gamers will reflect upon. If your a gamer or just someone that knows a gamer, this is a definite dose of laughter!

Sidenote: It’s amazing how you can find TV episodes online for free the next day, or even minutes after shows are out. Will PVR’s(personal video recorders) like Tivo live on…Will online sales on iTunes work? Do we really need to download shows anymore(bit torrent, kazaa, etc) or will it all be free like most of us like it(daily motion, VeoTag, youtube, google video,(rumors are google might buy Youtube)), and TV’s vanish as online content is there anytime we want with most the ads edited out already? I could go on and on about this topic, so I’ll pause here… but free content rocks!

update: The original video(probably down still) I posted was ripped down for copyright blah blah blah, hence, I spent 10 seconds, and found another one!! Don’t they get it…once it’s out, it’s out…don’t bother…yihawww internet world!

Here’s a new book by Bill Moggridge who pretty much coined the term “Interaction Design” and is one of the founders of IDEO. I’ve not read this book yet, but I’ve dived into their webpage full of little insightful bits about Interaction Design, videos of interviews with several key figures in design, and am glad it’s not purely about Interface design which many industries seem to gravitate towards even though Interface can be physical spaces or objects and not just screens.

Personally, my optimistic curious mind believes there is a solution for free energy, but then again, I think when it’s discovered, all hell will break loose. Anyhoots, check out the brief videos and form your own opinions… As far as I know, we could have had cars fueled by water many years ago, but freaking patents, politics, and oil tycoons own these great inventions, hence they will squeeze every penny they can before letting us all have it.via Techeblog

Nextfest nyc ended this weekend with tons of attendees, free Wired subscriptions, and my very tired feet. My partial 2 days of browsing Wired Magazine physically was great, but also a reminder of what crowded conferences feel like.

Pictured above is my friend Vincent Leclerc’s project “Revolver” which is a very simple solution in creating a cost effective 3D display. For more on this project go to EskiStudios. If you ever meet him, try to get a video of his first mock-up, cause it rocks!
Tons of pics after the jump!

Here’s a great little exercise I use to do when brainstorming ideas. The question is, “What will my kids never know, understand, or experience?”(in a tech-centric aspect). Here’s some quick thoughts:

1. How life was like before the life changing credit card.2. Why we had phones tethered to the walls, or even owned a land-line.3. What life was like before we carried cell phones around.(easy to experience though)4. Why we used Fax machines, typewriters, VCRs, Cassette tapes, Film, and maybe CDs5. What life was like without a computer.6. How freakin hard it was to find apartments before Craigslist was created.(this counts for many life changing internet services, ebay, email, google, IM’s, weather, stocks, rss, dictionary.com, etc)7. How hard it was to stay in touch with friends before the days of e-mail.8. How people use to hang out with just you, not you and their thousands of phones calls.9. How people could only do one of these at a time: read, watch tv, listen to music, IM, and work.10. How phones once had something called “1-way text messaging”, where you could receive, not know from who, nor reply..(I still own this phone)11. How we watched an hour of tv, 20 minutes of it being ads.(whoohoo for tivo)
I’d probably change some of these a bit, but it’s a quick jot. If you have some good ones, let me know.